


Unshielded

by shauds



Series: Shield [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Blue Devil (DCU Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Jason Todd is in Arkham, No editing we die like comics continuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shauds/pseuds/shauds
Summary: After Eddie's death Dan thinks to visit his one time sidekick's one time penpal to return some letters, and tell him what happened. He finds in Jason Todd a reflection of every fear that made his distance himself from the child he swore to look after so many years ago and wonders if there was any thing more he could have done to shield Eddie from his fate.
Relationships: Dan Cassidy & Jason Todd, Eddie Bloomberg & Dan Cassidy, Eddie Bloomberg & Jason Todd
Series: Shield [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640641
Comments: 10
Kudos: 79





	Unshielded

He knew this was a bad idea, but he though Gopher might have wanted… that the child Dan had once helped Gopher befriend might have deserved it.

For years, Dan had tried everything he could think of to keep Eddie from the hero life. Tried but had never been able to explain to Eddie **why** he didn’t want the kid in the hero business, not in a way that hadn’t been either misinterpreted or thrown out. He’d tried outright banning the kid from being his sidekick, tried cutting off contact when that hadn’t worked. **Nothing** had worked. Some of it to Dan’s horror had had the opposite effect. In the end, the worst scenario had come to pass despite it all, 

Months later, Dan had wondered if he should have allowed it after all, if him being there could have made the difference and changed the outcome to one even a little less tragic.

Now, he looked at the boy being led shackled to the other side of the heavy metal table by men twice his size but carrying ten times the amount of fear. Would it have made a difference to him, someone trying?

If Dan ignored the bright orange jumpsuit, the location if their meeting the horrifying implications of the scars peeking out from that jumpsuit, the boy could seem normal. His dark hair was a little long, a little messy like most teenagers, his posture loose and relaxed. There was nothing to say he noticed when the smile he shot at the guards who’d brought him in made them flee the situation faster.

No, so long as Dan didn’t look closely, he could almost ignore how Jason Todd was all the answer to every hypothetical he’d tried to shield Marla’s kid from. Proof of what happened to bright, happy children when instead of being kept safe, shielded from the horrors of the world, they were encouraged to thrown themselves at the worst humanity had to offer.

”Aw, you brought me a present?” Jason Todd lifted up his head and attempted to peer into the box Dan had set on the table between them. “Is is another case file?” His face screwed up. “Cause I just woke up and I’m **really** not in the mood.”

”No, they were Eddie’s, woulda tossed em, but I thought you might like them back.” Because the boy obviously couldn’t investigate the contents of the box himself with how closely his hands were bound to the table, Dan stood up to turn the box over and spill them before him.

”Wait, are these…” Jason picked up one of the dozens and dozens of letters and carefully, so much more carefully than Dan would have expected, slid the letter out from inside it. “Huh, he kept em all this time?” He snorted and something, hurt or some shade of surprise evident on his features as his eyes scanned the neat, but faded print on the page. “So he finally found out." He folded it and slid it back into it’s envelop as he picked out another. ”How is he? Haven’t had a chance to say hi yet, but all things considered I guess that’s for the be…”

”He’s gone.” Dan said and he felt something stab at his chest with a force he should have come to expect by now. "He never found out."

The change in Jason was instantaneous. His hand stalled over the stacks of paper, his eyes, once sad and mildly curious had gone hard, even the color of them seemed brighter, more dangerous when they locked with Dan’s. Now this was a man that Dan could see being locked in an asylum for the criminally insane. That sort of rage wasn’t normal; it wasn’t natural that it should be seen on the face of a kid. “Who did it?”

 _’Who did it,’_ and not ‘what happened,’ he was right, it still felt wrong that a teenager could die, and another so easily assume it had been murder.

”I don’t think I should tell you.” Dan replied, careful to keep from looking at the letters, from remembering the joy on the face of a little freckled child each time one arrived, from thinking of what had become of both that child and the one who had written them.

”I really think ya should.” The kid said, running his hands along worn paper edges, but keeping his unnerving gaze locked with Dan’s. “Come on old man, ya know I’m gonna find out either way, save us the trouble, huh?”

”I know,” Dan stood from his seat; this had most assuredly been a bad idea. “but this was all I came for, goodbye kid.” It was best he leave before he could do any kind of damage.

He didn’t make it very far before Jason called him back.

”Wait!” Jason pulled sharply on his chains then let out a breath that was tired and watery, the expression on his face when he turned from the letters was as pained as his voice was tight when he next spoke. “Can’t leave these here.” He cocked his head at the pile of paper. “They’re dangerous, too many secrets these assholes **can’t** have. Y’know, wouldn’t wanna **inconvenience** you-know-who.” He looked young again, too young for this.

”Maybe he deserves to be inconvenienced.” Dan shot back without needing a seconds worth of thought.

”Yeah.” Jason’s smile was sharp, biting as he traced a scar across his neck. “Still, please.” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t wanna have to burn em.”

”Sure.” Dan went back to gather up the letters. Jason was silent, moving only twice to wipe his suspiciously damp cheeks against his shoulders as he watched them disappear back into the dusty old box. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Dan said as he lifted refilled box, he wouldn’t have thought it could feel even heavier carrying it out that it was going in. “You’re still so young, you could be better. Gopher would have wanted you to do better; he never had a bad word to say about you.”

”Relax.” The kid rolled his eyes and gave his chains a few sharp jerks. “I’m locked away in one of the ‘most secure’ locations in the world, what could I do?” Dan might have felt better about that if he hadn’t **heard** those air quotes. Dan shook his head and knocked on the door, there was nothing he could do.

The guards came in, weary and harsh was before when they unchained the boy from the table and took hold of a shoulder each. He didn’t resist, looked for all the world like he was resigned to his stay at the asylum. Before they herded him past Dan, he stalled, stopping both guards in their tracks despite their advantages in size.

”Never had a bad word for you either.” Jason didn’t smile, but his smoothed feature spoke of something kinder than any smile he seemed capable of offering. “I know ya tried.” Kindness, however small was the worst thing he could have given, and Dan? He wasn’t sure he would have been able to tell the boy how wrong the first part of that was, near the end, how inadequate any trying on Dan’s part had been, even if he’d had the time. “Be seein’ ya BD.” He leaned back to wave right before the guards took him around a corner and out of sight.

The box was heavy with words written by a child that should never have become that man, words that Gopher had read and reread over and over again, so excited every time he got a new letter. He never should have ended up that way. If his caretaker had done what he was supposed to, if he’d shielded that boy the horrors that had turned him into that instead of throwing him into it headfirst, he might have written more.

But then, in the end, all of Dan’s trying had amounted to nothing, Marla’s kid, the kid **Dan** had promised to shield from the same by any means necessary, was gone all the same. Could he really say he’d done any better? Was this better?

It wasn’t long, less than a week, before Dan heard about the breakout, and he was sure he only heard of it at all because he was listening. It was a long while before he heard anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #020 Sheild on my dreamwidth prompt table requested by keiynans-lonsdale on tumblr.


End file.
